Philippine Labor Migration Policy

The Philippine Labor Migration Policy of the Philippine government allows and encourages emigration. The Department of Foreign Affairs, which is one of the government's arms of emigration, grants Filipinos passports that allow entry to foreign countries. The Philippine government enacted the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 (Republic Act 8042) in order to "institute the policies of overseas employment and establish a higher standard of protection and promotion of the welfare of migrant workers and their families and overseas Filipinos in distress."

Among the Filipino migrants, there is a significant amount of migrants that are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). One of the recent trends in Filipino contractual workers is that as years pass by, more and more women have traveled out of the country, outnumbering the men. This can be attributed to the fact that domestic helpers and entertainers are in-demand globally. In fact entertainers destined for Japan and other countries have increased from 3.3% to 18.9% in a span of a decade from 1983-1984. As of 2009, the most Filipinos work as household service workers. Out of the total of 71, 557 household workers, 69,669 are women.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), many of the OFWs are Overseas Contract Workers (OCW).

OFWs are distributed among different age groups. The 25-29 age bracket comprises more OFWs than the other age groups.

OFWs come from all parts of the country, and many of them come from provinces of the Philippines.

According to the World Bank, 4,275,200 Filipinos have emigrated out of the country as of 2010. Among those who travel abroad are Overseas Contractual Workers (41%), immigrants (29%) and those who are undocumented (30%). As of 2009, 1,422,586 Filipino workers have contributed to remittances from abroad. According to the book Philippine Labour Migration, these workers can be categorized into eight criteria, by type, countries of deployment, gender, rural or urban origin, civil status, age, education and skills, and occupation.

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